


declination

by ivorygates, synecdochic



Series: the cammieverse [8]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Imported, Negotiations, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-06
Updated: 2008-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:57:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates, https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cammie's not entirely sure when her life turned into a comedy of manners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	declination

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/187381.html) 2008-02-06.)

One year, ten months, three weeks, and three days after Cammie Mitchell walks into the SGC for the first time, she stops counting the days.

Never quite picks it up again, either.

*

It's a Wednesday night, but they're just coming off nine straight days offworld; it was one of those missions that started out shitty and only got shittier. Thrown in jail (again), jailbreak ( _again_ ), this time with the added delight of having stolen a _tel'tak_ on the way out (which is sure to annoy the Lucians to _hell and gone_ , and she'd really like to be at the staff meeting where Netan finds out that Tenat lost it _and_ them; Cammie's got _one fucking hell_ of a grudge against Tenat and has ever since the bastard had wound up extending his _warmest_ hospitality to her for two weeks, six months or so back). The _tel'tak_ had been looking like a good plan, until the engines had given up the ghost half a parsec outside of Bel'mek Station and they'd been forced to limp to the nearest neutral Gate-equipped world, babying the shields all the way, on short rations (both food and water) the whole time. 

_Not_ her idea of a good time. 

She showers away nine days of blood and fear-stink and sweat the minute Dr. Lam clears her, not even bothering to wait for SG-3 to clear out of the locker room. It isn't the first time, and she's careful. Doesn't try to cover herself up more or less than any of the men, doesn't let her eyes linger but doesn't make a big deal out of not looking. 

The boys are used to her by now, but Nat Reynolds still winces as she dries herself off, wraps herself in a towel, and limps back over to her locker. "Looks like that hurt," he says, quietly.

He's talking about the bruise that's spreading down her right thigh; it starts underneath the edge of the towel and creeps all the way down to her knee. It's yellowing now; six days ago it was every color of the rainbow. "Walked into a wall," she says. (A wall named Chak'tor; not all of the Jaffa have joined the Free Jaffa, and the Lucians tend to use them for muscle.) 

Nat knows what she means. "Hope you hit the wall back on your way out," he says.

She smiles. She's too tired to make it more than just a little tiny quirking of the lips, but Nat will worry if she doesn't smile at all. "Pretty sure the wall's been pulled down, yeah," she says. "I'm thinkin' there ain't gonna be much problem from that sector, once Netan works out what went down."

"We can hope," Nat says, and politely turns his back as she starts pulling clothes out of her locker.

Panties, bra; she hesitates for a minute between BDU pants and her jeans, but Landry's not in (gone home already, and Daniel'd had some choice words for _that_ , but Cammie's stopped listening to all the ways Landry is morally, spiritually, and motivationally inferior to General Hammond or General Jack, no matter how much she might agree; it only depresses her) and so the debrief is scheduled for tomorrow. She gave the rest of the team their standard post-mission seventy-two; she'll come back in the morning and take care of letting Landry know all the ways the deal went south. Technically, she should go back down to her office and start in on the report, but there's time enough for that tomorrow. Jeans it is, then, and the tank top she wore into the Mountain nine days ago. She doesn't even know what the weather's like up there; she hopes it hasn't turned cold again. 

Sam's waiting outside the locker room when she comes out; she sees Sam's eyes flick to the sign on the door, set to "men", and Sam sighs. They've had it out about Cammie's habit of making the locker room unisex in practice as well as by design, but neither one of them has ever convinced the other. Cammie's never going to give up her conviction that if the SGC's lords and masters cared too deeply about who showered with whom, they would have actually spent the money to put in _two_ locker rooms, one male, one female; Sam's never going to give up her conviction that they maintained the distinction for eight years before Cammie came along and it worked just fine, and showering with the men is demeaning. Cammie's got half the female Gate Team members on her side by now; Sam's got the other half. They try to keep the bickering between the two of them, at least. 

"You look wiped," Sam says, instead of starting up another round. "I hope you're planning on going home and getting some sleep."

Cammie _is_ wiped, but it's the kind of tired that's mental more than physical, and she can feel the restlessness under her skin; cooped up like a caged panther for six whole days on the _tel'tak_ with three other people and nowhere near enough space, and if she goes straight to being cooped up in Daniel's apartment she'll be like to burst. "Eventually," she says. "Maybe go play a few games of pool first, have a couple of beers. You wanna come too?"

Sam just shakes her head. "Not me," she says. "Teal'c, maybe. Or Daniel."

Cammie snorts. "Daniel was out of here half an hour ago," she says. Daniel was the first to clear medical; for once, the Lucians _hadn't_ beaten the shit out of him, which Cammie takes less as a sign that Daniel's learned to keep his mouth shut and more as a sign that _she's_ learned to mouth off better. "Which means he's either at home on the couch by now, or buried down in his office and won't leave until midnight."

"Teal'c, then?" Sam says. 

"Naw," Cammie says. "I'll be okay." She summons up another ghost of a smile. "I love y'all, and you _know_ I love y'all, but --"

Sam laughs. "Yeah, okay. Six days _is_ a bit long to be stuffed in a _tel'tak_ with all of us. Okay, fine. Go. Have fun." She smiles a little. "Tell me if you run across anything interesting."

"Hand to God," Cammie promises, and makes her way up to the surface.

She isn't actually looking for anything more than what she told Sam she was looking for: game of pool, a pitcher of beer. Maybe a few boys to flirt with, but the no-harm-no-foul kind of flirting, the one that sends up the "cheerful but unavailable" signal flags instead of the "ready to go home with you" ones. Been a while since she picked anyone up in a bar for a friendly overnight, and longer since she's gone home with any of the civilians from the SGC. It isn't that she isn't interested in getting laid -- she is, and she's starting to feel a little itchy with the need to -- but Daniel always seems to _know_ , and he has a way of looking at her that makes her feel like she's stolen his candy and kicked his puppy, and she just doesn't feel like dealing with it. Not tonight, not lately. 

She's starting to get a little annoyed with him -- it's though he's _determined_ to be oblivious about why he's so jealous, and she knows he'd deny the jealousy with his dying breath if she called him on it -- but she knows better than to bring it up. It's just easier if she gives it time. He'll either get over it or suddenly catch a clue, and either way she can deal with it then. 

For now, she settles in at Hank's Roadhouse, in a booth by the pool tables, and Jessie (weeknight waitress, forty years old and working her way through the college degree she always wanted; two kids, four dogs, and a bastard ex-husband who needs to be shot in the foot one of these days) brings her a pitcher of Sam Adams without having to be asked for it. "Oh, honey, you look like shit," is Jessie's opinion, and Cammie sighs.

"Yeah, I know," she says. "I _know_. You're the sixth person to tell me that tonight."

Jessie pats her on the arm, brisk and sympathetic. "Well, you just sit down and take a load off," she says. "You need anything, you flag me down; don't you try to get up and save me the trip."

They both know Cammie will, and they both know it won't lower Jessie's tip in the least. But Cammie says the usual noncommittal pleasantries, knocks back the first glass fast enough that it actually makes her lightheaded despite her tolerance -- she hadn't let Dr. Lam give her any painkillers, but it _has_ been a long fucking week and a half -- and then refills her glass and brings it over to the pool table.

Hank's is the kind of place where you can leave your pitcher on your table and not have to worry about what else'll be in it when you come back, and it's the kind of place where whoever's got the tables is always more than happy to have a pretty girl come kibitz or join in. It's one of the reasons why she keeps coming back. She doesn't know any of the guys at either of the pool tables, but they're cute and friendly, and by the time she's downed the rest of the pitcher, talked smack about their ability, been handed the cue stick, lost thoroughly and resoundingly, been teased to hell and gone, danced with five guys who respect personal space and two guys who don't, and spent a happy ten minutes making out in the booth with one of the two who don't, she's starting to feel like herself again.

She deftly manages to avoid giving out her phone number or collecting anyone else's, double-checks her BAC with the breathalyzer Hank (there is a Hank, although he never works the bar anymore) keeps behind the bar -- just to make sure; she's _certain_ she's fine to drive, and sure enough, she is, but better safe than sorry -- and checks her watch as she heads to the truck. A little later than she'd have liked to get home, since she _is_ going to be up with the birds and heading into the Mountain, but she needed the night off. 

She debates home versus Daniel's -- or rather, the apartment she pays rent on versus home -- for half a second, but she'd been telling Sam the truth; she's pretty sure Daniel's still tucked in his office back at the Mountain, so she won't wake him if she comes in. (Wouldn't wake him either way; the man sleeps like the _dead_ , even _if_ saying so will usually prompt a good ten minutes of talk about all the things she just doesn't like to think about.) Daniel's is closer, too. She parks in the lot, in the second parking space his apartment is entitled to (hers, now; she's the only one who ever uses it) and whistles as she jogs up the stairs two at a time.

*

Cammie cuts off the whistling as she turns her key in the lock and tiptoes in, in deference to the remote possibility that Daniel might be in bed and asleep. The lights are on in the living room, though, which means he's both home and awake; she gives up the attempt at sneaky and just tosses her keys into the incense-pot Daniel uses as a key-holder. "Hey, baby," she calls, toeing off her shoes. "Wasn't expecting you to be home yet; I thought you'd still be up the Mountain."

"No," Daniel says. His voice barely carries; she thinks he's probably standing at the sliding doors to the balcony, which is weird. He doesn't do that often. "I left when I realized you'd left. I thought you'd be coming straight back here."

"Well, hell," she says. It isn't often that she fails to predict him that badly. "Shoulda called my cell if you were looking for me. Something happen after I left?"

When she walks into the living room, he _is_ standing at the balcony. The doors are open; the soft first-hint-of-spring breeze is whispering in. Smells good, even if it's cold. He turns as she comes up behind him, and something in his face makes her take a step back. "No," he says. "I was just thinking -- It's not important."

Weirder and weirder, but she won't push. "Okay, then," she agrees, and heads back over to drop the backpack she uses as a purse next to the couch; it's got a couple of days' worth of clothing in it, although she's pretty sure that she's got enough stuff in his drawers by now to be fine even if she winds up staying more than a few days. "You do the fridge yet, or should I?"

It's intended as a rhetorical question; he never remembers to take the spoiled milk and such out of the fridge when they get back from being offworld for longer than they'd intended. She's already starting for the kitchen, anticipating his answer, when he says, "I got it already. Sam said you'd gone out drinking. I didn't know if you'd be coming over tonight or not."

She can feel her eyebrows drawing together. "Wouldn't call it _drinking_ ," she says, carefully. She makes herself keep moving, heads into the kitchen, pulls out a bottle of water from the fridge. It has been cleaned out, and nearly as well as she'd have done it herself (then again, she doesn't expect him to be able to tell that those apples have gone over by now; they look fine on the surface). "Stopped at Hank's for a pitcher and a few games of pool, just to unwind a bit."

"See, now, I'd call that drinking," he says. And that's it; something _is_ wrong, because she hasn't heard that patented Dr. Daniel Jackson You-Are-Such-An-Idiot-And-I-Am-More-Than-Happy-To-Let-You-Know-This-Fact Sarcasm out of him for a while. Not directed at _her_ , at least. She discards the half-formed plan of pulling out a tin of cookies and settling down on the couch with him to figure out what lies she's going to tell Landry in the morning, and instead comes back to the door of the kitchen to stare at him.

What she _wants_ to say is _you wanna tell me what the hell crawled up your ass and died?_ , so she counts five before she says anything, and then keeps on going to ten for good measure. "You wanna tell me what I did so I can say my sorries and not do it again?" she asks.

"Nothing," Daniel says, but it's clipped and cold. "It's none of my business if you decide you want to go to bars and pick up men. I just wasn't expecting it after the week we had, is all. And I didn't know whether you'd be home tonight or not."

Oh. _Oh_. Her fingers flex on the doorframe; she can't decide whether to be angry at the jealousy, laugh at how poorly he's covering it up, or be touched straight through that he called this place 'home' and meant them both. She won't stand for him thinking that he gets to treat her like she's his, not until he actually makes his position clear and they get a chance to work things out, but now's not the time to deal with it. "I am sorry," she says, clearly and carefully. "I should have let you know I'd be over. I wasn't looking to pick someone up, just get rid of some of the frustration from being pent up for so long."

"I said it was none of my business," he says, but it's got the pissy little trill that means he really thinks it _is_. 

And it's been a shit week, and it's been a shit month before that -- hell, a shit _year_ \-- and she is suddenly _sick and tired_ of manuvering around him, of trying to avoid offending his delicate sensibilities and trying to keep him from realizing just _how fucking much_ she is in love with him (because he'd bolt for the hills the minute he caught a whiff of it, and she knows that, _knows_ it, has from moment one) and she is _really_ fucking sick of how _absolutely fucking determined_ he seems to be to patently ignore every single last emotion that's straight under his nose. She re-caps her bottle of water, carefully, before she _throws it at his head_ , and chucks it, without looking, straight into the sink. It echoes as it hits the basin. He flinches, just a little. 

"Look, you know what?" she says, and oh, she can _feel_ her temper rising, and that way lies disaster, but she can't seem to stop her mouth. "I am damn fucking sick of all this sexual tension between you'n me, and I'm damn fucking sick of the way it's messing with _everything_ , and I have had it up to _here_ with you pretending like you're not jealous as hell of anyone I so much as smile at. Let's just go ahead an' fuck it out of our systems." 

She couldn't have rendered him more speechless if she'd reached down his throat and pulled out his vocal cords. Even as she's thinking _oh fucking hell_ , he's opening his mouth, closing it again, opening it, closing it, and finally actually _spluttering_. Like he can't believe she just said what she just said. Well, that makes two of them. Finally, just as the flash of temper is starting to fade and she's gearing up to apologize, to pass it off as a joke -- a bad one, true, but still -- he opens his mouth again and actually manages to force out words this time. "I have no interest," he says, and _oh God_ it's vicious like knives, "in being yet another one of your one-night stands."

Oh. Oh God. Oh _God_. She feels like he's just punched her in the chest. No, worse; she's _been_ punched in the chest, recently enough to have the point of comparison, and it doesn't leave her fingers and toes this numb and cold. She hasn't exactly been a _nun_ for the past two years, because she'd been in hospital beds and rehab and wheelchairs for eighteen months and she had to know, _had_ to, that a man wouldn't take one look at all her scars and run screaming. And she loves him, but she's a _realist_ , and she hadn't wanted to believe, to hope, that it would work out for them. It would have killed her to live out the rest of her days as nothing more than his friend, but she could have done it; better to have friendship than nothing at all. 

And she hasn't exactly been rubbing his nose in her affairs, but -- well, he'd have to know, wouldn't he? She's _here_ every night she's not in someone else's bed, by now, and she and Sam vowed a pact years ago that neither of them would hold back details, and they go out of their way to keep from being vulgar (well, Sam does) but sound _carries_ in an offworld tent or in a Lucian jail cell. Of course Daniel would have heard.

She'd figured he would have. She just hadn't figured he'd been silently judging her the whole time.

There are tears starting somewhere down in her throat, and she _will by God_ not let him see them. She draws her spine up until she's wearing the body language of Cammie-at-the-Mountain instead of Cammie-at-home; it helps. Enough. Over and done with, now -- she's screwed it -- but she still has to set the record straight, because she can't bear to think that he doesn't know the truth. "Since I have joined the SGC," she says (and it's Cammie-at-the-Mountain's voice, too, the frosty bust-your-balls kind she'd use to pin back the ears of some green Lieutenant, and that's not going to be doing her cause any good, but it's the only thing she can manage right now) "I have had -- not that it is _any_ of your business -- a grand total of six partners. My average relationship with each of them has been three months, and I am still on excellent terms with them all, and contrary to what you might think, I don't sleep with every man I date, and I have _certainly_ done nothing to warrant such contempt in your voice when you speak to me, and you can just go to hell, Daniel Jackson, straight clear to hell and gone, and you take your fucking sanctimonious judgement with you." 

She's about three-quarters of the way through it when she can feel the tears threatening to choke her again, no matter _how_ hard she tries to hold them back. He's staring at her like a fish out of water. She grabs her backpack from where she'd left it -- not her couch anymore, not her living room, not her _home_ \-- and grabs her keys and her shoes on her way to the door. It takes her less than five seconds. If she slams the door a little too firmly behind her, she chooses to call it an accident.

By the time she gets downstairs and into her truck, her socks are soaking through from the puddle she'd stepped in; she hadn't wanted to take the time to put her shoes on, even sitting in the stairwell, because the last thing she wanted was for him to come to his senses and come chasing after her. She peels them off and drops them on the passenger's-side floor. Then stops (the _hell_ with if he comes after; she doesn't have to open the truck's door or roll down the window) and takes a deep breath. Another. She _will not cry_. 

He still hasn't come out of the building by the time she feels steady enough to put the truck into drive; she _does not let_ herself be disappointed.

*

Sam's in her pajamas when Cammie bangs on the door, but she's not yawning like she was yanked out of sleep, so Cammie doesn't feel _too_ guilty. "Cammie," she says, blinking. Then she blinks more as Cammie pushes past her and heads straight for the freezer, where there's a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk with her name on it. "Ah. Are you all right?"

"I'm _fine_ ," Cammie spits. Or tries to, because the minute the first syllable comes out of her mouth, the dam bursts and she finds herself leaking tears six ways to Sunday.

"Oh, _crap_ ," Sam says. Then they go through the whole routine of Sam handing her tissues and patting her awkwardly on the back, which just makes Cammie cry harder, which makes Sam even more awkward, and with one thing leading to another, it's a good twenty minutes before they're tucked in on the couch with the ice cream (mostly melted by now) and Cammie blurting out the whole sordid story.

"Honey," Sam says. "It's all right. He's just an idiot."

"I _know_ he's an idiot," Cammie says, and sniffles. "I'm fully _aware_ he's an idiot. Oh, God, Sam, I've been so _careful_. And then I had to go lose my temper and screw it to hell and gone and it's _my fault_ , but _still_. He didn't have to say that."

"Well, you startled him," Sam says. "It's _Daniel_. He startles easily."

Cammie nestles her bare feet under the cushions of the couch and stabs the spoon into the remnants of the ice cream. "I'm trading him to Reynolds," she says. "For a _candy bar_." 

She's threatened it before. It's the first time she thinks she might almost mean it. Daniel has offered (threatened) to quit SG-1 six times so far, and each time it's been (at heart, once you peel back all those stiff layers of Dr. Jackson to find the Daniel underneath) because he thinks he's doing her more harm than good, that he's not wanted, that her life would be easier without him. They haven't had one of those incidents in over six months; she's pretty sure this is going to kick one off. And she's not sure she can handle being Daniel's commanding officer when she's pretty sure she's just screwed the pooch on being his friend, and she's not sure she can face having to convince Daniel he's wanted when she's going to have to make herself re-define all the possible meanings of the word 'want'.

_This is why this whole thing was a bad idea from the beginning, Cameron Evangeline,_ the voice of her daddy says in her ears -- something he'd never actually say to her in person, but the little voice of her daddy's potential disapproval that she carries around with her and tries to live up to judges far more harshly than her daddy ever would. _Don't you let it get in the way of what you know you have to do._

Sam sighs, patient and long-suffering. "Give him time," she says, sounding (Cammie thinks) far too unconcerned. "You shook him up a little. It's good for him. And yeah, he was tactless and you were bitchy, but it's not the first time and it won't be the last. It's not the end of the world. Just give it _time_." She reaches out and takes the ice cream from Cammie; Cammie only doesn't protest because she's half-starting to yawn, the crying jag having worn her out. "For now, _sleep_."

"Candy bar," Cammie mutters.

Sam pulls the afghan off the back of the couch (the one Cammie made for her, hundreds and hundreds of tiny tessellating fish all sewn up together with a whole lot of grumbling for the amount of seaming it involved and a whole lot of love for the woman who's been her closest girlfriend for ages on back, and _oh_ , her Gran'ma's afghan is still on Daniel's couch, and Cammie's going to have to get it back if it turns out Daniel doesn't want her there anymore, and that's just going to be awkward six ways to Sunday) and tucks it around Cammie's shoulders. "Candy bar _and_ that cute Marine Reynolds is breaking in," she corrects. "Come on. Let's go to bed. I know you're going to be up at the crack of dawn."

It's halfway to the crack of dawn already, but Cammie just sighs and pulls the afghan close, stumbles into Sam's bedroom and strips down to skin. Sam joins her after a few minutes of tidying and locking-up, and there's the usual few minutes of trying to arrange themselves so they have enough room. Sam's not a snuggler with anyone else, but Cammie's never let her be standoffish, not with all they've been to each other, and by the time arms and legs are all arranged, Sam's spooned up behind her and curled around her to hold her tight. The room is quiet for a few minutes, just street-noises and the sound of Sam's even breathing, and Cammie can't decide if she's starting to feel better or if she's just so miserable she's stopped feeling it.

"I can hear you replaying the whole thing in your head," Sam says, drowsily, against Cammie's hair. "Stop it. You'll just make yourself crazy."

"Went crazy already," Cammie mutters. "Decided I didn't like it."

Sam laughs, one soft quiet chuff. "Too late," she says. "Comes with the job."

And yeah, Cammie is rerunning the conversation in her head -- a perfect memory's a curse and a blessing, Daddy always used to tell her, and never before has she ever known what he means _quite_ this sharply -- but Sam's rubbing reassuring circles against her hip and Sam's breathing is soft in her ear, and she falls asleep in between one self-recrimination and the next.

She wakes up a few hours later, just as the clock is turning over to oh-five-thirty, same as she does every morning when she hasn't reminded herself she's on downtime. Her eyes are gritty with lack of sleep and with the tears she cried last night and never washed away. For a minute, she can't remember where she is and who's in the bed with her, and then last night comes flooding back, in painful Dolby stereo surround-sound, and the fact that she couldn't remember who was in the bed with her makes her feel like crying again, because, well, nothing could have spoken to Daniel's words more. 

But she pushes it aside. The rest of the team is damn well going to get their seventy-two -- she promised -- and she knows that the only way she can guarantee it is to be there when Landry rolls in for him to yell at in person. She levers herself out of the bed (Sam doesn't even stir, but Sam's always been much better at sleeping late than she is; Cammie's always been near-jealous) and into the shower before she can convince herself that Landry somehow miraculously grew some compassion while they were on their nine-day adventure and won't bust her ass for being late. 

She skips the morning run, though. Mood like this, she'd just keep running and not stop until she was rounding the corner to jog up the gravel driveway back home to let Momma tend her a while.

She eyes the coffeemaker wistfully, but the smell of coffee will wake Sam where the sound of the shower running won't, so she resolves to suffer uncaffeinated until she can get to the Mountain and steal a cup from whoever's got the good stuff brewing today. Sam's still got a heel-end of the cinnamon-raisin bread Cammie made the weekend before their Grand Tour, kicking around in a plastic bag in the fridge. Cammie inspects it for mold, sniffs it closely, breaks off a crumb and tastes it; it's still good. She likes the cinnamon-raisin bread for that very reason; it lasts a few weeks if you tend it right. (Stab of realization: she'll be making the next batch of it in _this_ kitchen, like enough, and that makes her heart break all over again, because Sam's kitchen is a showpiece, not a workroom, and it'll take her weeks to break it in.) 

_Let it go, Mama Bear._ She grabs the heel of bread and stuffs it between her teeth to hold onto while she heads out the door and locks it behind her, then squares her shoulders and keeps on going. She'd left her cellphone in the truck last night; it's sitting in the cupholder of the dash. She checks it automatically (there's Family stationed everywhere to hell and gone, and nobody likes to be out of touch for too long, just in case and God willing it ain't needed; she shouldn't have even left it for this long). There's voicemail. Three messages.

She grits her teeth, fits the hands-free earpiece against the shell of her ear, and dials voicemail as she puts the truck in drive.

_Cammie? What the hell was that? Where the hell did you go? Come back so we can figure out what the hell just went on._

Flustered, stunned, still a whole lot of mad lying in wait. She deletes it.

_Cammie? Where are you? I thought you would have -- Call me back, dammit, I mean it. I didn't -- Just come back so we can talk, all right? Cammie?_

Still flustered, still stunned, less of the mad, a little bit of worry. She deletes it. 

_Cammie? It's Daniel. I mean, you know it's me, you saw the caller ID, that's probably why you're not picking up, I mean -- Cammie? Cammie, please pick up -- I sound stupid, I know you can't actually hear me, it's not like an answering machine, I mean -- Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- I mean -- I don't mean -- I don't know what I mean, but -- look, just call me, all right? Please? ...I hope you're okay._

Her finger hovers over the delete key for that one. He sounds worried in earnest, now, with a little bit of desperation, and it makes her brows draw together to hear it. Might be he's (once again) realized speak in haste, repent in leisure, and gotten himself along to the repenting. Might be he realized how badly he'd hurt her when she'd lashed out at him so hard, and realized how much of an ass he'd been being. Might be he just realized he was facing the prospect of the rest of eternity without hot and cold running maid service and gourmet chef.

_Get a fucking grip, Mama Bear,_ she tells herself, horrified to hear her thoughts. Unkind and uncharitable and unChristian; there isn't a conniving or calculating bone in Daniel Jackson's body (wouldn't love him if there were, and she _does_ love him, still and will, or she wouldn't be unfairly vilifying him so badly, because nobody can hurt you like the ones you love) and she knows the thought wouldn't even begin to enter his head. 

She deletes the message anyway. If she thought the sound of the phone ringing wouldn't wake him out of a sound sleep, she'd call him and leave a chilly "I'm fine" message in return just so she can ease his mind, but he wakes for doors opening and phones ringing even when nothing else on God's green earth will drag him out of bed, and she won't do that to him. He's just as exhausted as she was, as they _all_ are, and they've been running themselves ragged for the past year just to keep the ground they're standing on. Let the man get some sleep.

Walter, God love him, always knows _precisely_ who has the Good Coffee brewing this morning -- she lost track of the rotation while they were offworld -- and is happy to chase her down a cup; apparently she looks like death warmed over, a fact she attributes to the night of sobbing her heart out more than the vicissitudes of life on a stolen _tel'tak_ , and it's re-awoken his innate desire to pamper her. She usually makes a game of protesting, but today the usual dance of offer and counter-offer seems too much effort, which just cements Walter's conviction that something's horribly rotten in the state of Cammie. She settles down at her desk instead, and Walter hovers in the door for just long enough for her to know that if she were to ask for anything else, he'd leap to get it in a heartbeat. Instead, she ignores him hovering just long enough for him to know that she's not going to ask him to get anything else, and he departs. They're used to the routine by now; it only takes a few seconds. 

Landry's not in yet -- of _course_ Landry's not in yet; the only way Landry would possibly have been here at 0730 is if she _hadn't_ been, that being her luck -- and she should be using her time to work on her report. They found out a double handful of important things, including how Bel'mek Station is doing a _thriving_ business in tretonin sales. Daniel had been the first one to call the Lucians' tretonin operation _freelegging_ , a portmonteau of freebooting and bootlegging, which sums it up pretty well: half stolen from the Tok'ra, half produced in-house, and it funds most of the ever-growing Lucian empire. Daniel had also made dark noises about how he'd never wanted to be Eliot Ness when he grew up. She'd figured she was gonna have to explain that one to Teal'c, but turned out Teal'c had to explain it to Sam, and Daniel had --

_Focus._ She lets her hands hover over the keyboard and closes her eyes, summons up the peculiar no-mind non-thought state necessary for her to get at memory-transcripts of conversations that happened long enough ago that they've moved to long-term memory, and starts typing. Intelligence section'll want to know what they found out, even when Landry doesn't seem to give a rat's ass.

Cammie comes out of it at the sound of Walter's soft cough from the doorway, and it takes her a second to focus in on the here-and-now enough to realize that it wasn't the first time he'd tried to get her attention. She automatically hits ctrl-S as she swivels around to see him. "General Landry wants to see you," Walter offers, a little apologetically. Unspoken, the perpetual corrolary: _I am so sorry._

Well, not the first time she's served under a moron, and it's not like to be the last. "Thanks, honey," she says, and checks both time and document for progress. It's edging up on oh-ten-thirty, and she's a little startled to see she's been typing for fifteen pages. Intelligence'll be busy, at least.

She escapes from the meeting with Landry forty-one minutes later -- with nothing more dire than a few extra grooves in her lower lip where she always has to bite down once Landry works up to a head of yelling, an order to get her full report to him by midafternoon (so he can read the first page and completely ignore the rest, of course -- she's proven this six times already by replacing select paragraphs and pages past ten or twelve with blocks of that "lorem ipsum" text that typesetters use, and Landry's never once said anything to her about it, although General Jack always calls her up straight off to twist her tail whenever she does), and Landry's registered disapproval of her choice to give the rest of the team their regulation-dictated seventy-two before he could do the full-team debrief. 

She apologized for "overstepping her bounds" on that one, and it was bitter in her mouth, but she's not yet ready to cross the line into full-bore insubordination yet, not until and unless it gets worse. She's had it out with General Jack about how neither one of them thinks Hank Landry's worth so much as the spit it would take to curse him, and General Jack told her to bide her time and toe the line. And she'd follow Jack O'Neill to the ends of the earth and beyond even _without_ the rest of SG-1's endorsement, so she holds her tongue. And bites her lip. 'Least she's not drawing blood anymore when she does.

When she gets back to her office, it's to find Daniel, looking a little bit nervous, a little bit resolute.

And Cammie's still steaming under the collar from having Landry call her -- _almost_ in as many words -- a silly emotional girl (nothing new there, but it _smarts_ , today of all days), and she still hasn't had more than a few spare minutes to process anything that happened last night. Has been shoving it back into the little bits and corners of her mind where she puts "things that belong off the Mountain", in fact. And twenty-three of that forty-one minutes had been Landry taking her to task about setting her team free without his explicit approval -- nevermind that he hadn't been there to _give_ it, nevermind that regulations say any unexpected offworld stay of longer than four days _requires_ seventy-two downtime -- and here Daniel is, looking awkward, exactly where she'd just gotten chewed out for giving him permission not to be, and it all combines to make her voice so sharp. 

"Thought I told you you were on seventy-two," she says, and drops down in her desk chair. 

He stays standing on the other side of her desk, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "Ah. Yeah. I just came in to -- I called Walter and he said you'd come in, and I called your desk but you didn't pick up, so I just came in to see if you were all right."

There's one thing that's missing from his pretty little speech, and that's anything that even remotely resembles a 'sorry'. "I'm fine," she says. "Spent the night at Sam's. Came in to write my report before certain parties decided to yell at me for it bein' late."

She doesn't look at him. Can't look at him. It isn't _fair_ for him to bring this onto the Mountain, exactly where she always tried to keep it out of. So she swivels her chair around and unlocks her workstation, sets her fingers back on the keyboard, and tabs over to her email to see what's come in since she last saw it.

There's a minute of silence. "Ah," Daniel finally says. "Okay. That's -- that's good. That you're okay. I mean." He pauses. "Look. About last night. I --"

It isn't _fair_ for him to bring this onto the Mountain. She's spent a year and a goddamn half keeping their personal business out of their work business, and she's spent a year and a goddamn half having everyone from Landry on down to the greenest recruit out of the Academy whispering gossip about her personal life, and it's been a hard road to walk most of the time and Daniel hasn't had one fucking _clue_ about any of it, and it's also not fair of her to hold all that against him, but that doesn't means she's not doing it anyway. 

"Look," she says, a little more sharply than she intended. "It's all right. I said something I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry for it. I'm sorry to have made you uncomfortable; I won't do it again. My misunderstanding, and I shouldn't have let it get in the way." She can hear it coming out of her mouth, and she might mean every word of it -- sort of -- but it _sounds_ like the kind of apology only a Southern woman can deliver, acid wrapped underneath every kind word, and she can only hope he can't read those cues. Which is even odds. Half the time he can't read her for shit; half the time he's got an insight she finds scary. 

She isn't looking at him, but she can hear his indrawn breath, hear him check whatever he was going to say and start over again. "I hurt your feelings," he says, quietly -- and oh, isn't it _nice_ of him to finally realize it? "I'm sorry too."

The last thing she wants right now is to find out whether he's apologizing for _what_ he said or just how he said it. "Apology accepted," she says, briskly, lest he elaborate further, and then she does look up. He's squinting at her like he's trying to figure her out, like he's trying to read her words and her cues, and sweet merciful Jesus she _cannot have this conversation right now_. So she says, "Now, I just got done spending twenty-five minutes defending myself to Landry for lettin' you all go on home last night and tellin' you you didn't have to be back here, so _go the hell home_ before he finds out you _are_ here an' I get in trouble again."

He stares at her, and she sees shock in his face, shock and a dawning realization. She doesn't want to know a realization of _what_. For a minute he looks like he's going to argue. Then he draws his shoulders up and nods. "All right," he says. "Will -- Are you coming over tonight?"

Her heart hurts. Her heart actually physically _hurts_ , like an iron band around her chest, like the way you feel when you spend nine days convinced you're about to die horribly and then come home to four hours of crying and three hours of sleep. Because looking at him, she still sees the man she loves, and he did all but spit in her face out of spite last night, and if he'd just given her another two days to calm _down_ before coming after her, if he'd just taken the goddamn seventy-two hours she'd given the goddamn team, she'd have decided what to do about it.

So she smiles at him, and she means for it to be reassuring (the give-me-a-bit-of-time smile), and from the look on his face, the bleak stark shock, she's guessing it's more towards the _noli-me-tangere_ smile she gives to offworld chieftans who have exhibited a blatant disregard of her personal space. "I have some things I need to do back home," she says. "You go on and make your plans without me."

If he says anything else, she doesn't hear it. The sound of the blood ringing in her ears is too loud. The door shuts behind him, and she puts her fingers back on the keyboard's keys, and this time when she closes her eyes, it's not for recall, but to keep herself from breaking down any further.

*

They came back on a Wednesday night, and between seventy-two hours down and their usual scheduled weekend, on Thursday night when she leaves the Mountain, Cammie has a chance of actually getting a full seventy-two of her own. She's already down NORAD Road and onto Academy when she realizes she's heading for downtown and has left the turnoff for her apartment complex long behind in the dust.

She swears, brutally, and yanks the wheel around. The truck can't hold a candle to Miss Mam'zelle Hepzibah the '66 T-bird convertible, but Miss Mam'zelle doesn't take to cold well, even _without_ the salt and grime and grunge on the roads to ruin her beautiful paint job, so Miss Mam'zelle is wintering over at Bobby's garage just out of town down 115 and Bobby himself sold her the '77 Dodge pickup she's driving now. She calls it President Nixon, because it's about as evil as, but at least she can do a U-turn and not a three-point when traffic breaks enough to let her pull it off. Let the cops stop her; she doesn't fucking care.

Her crackerbox apartment's dusty, musty, and cold. What with one thing and the other, it's been about a month since she's been here, and the cleaning people only come in every other week, and they do a shit job anyway. She stands in the hallway and allows herself to loathe the fucking place with every inch of her being for two minutes and two minutes precisely before opening all the windows throughout the apartment, turning up the heat until it's at 78 degrees to counterbalance the chill outside, walking into the bedroom, stripping off the sheets, replacing them with fresh ones, hauling her extra comforter out of the closet, piling every blanket in the apartment on top of the bed, and collapsing into the nest to make a payment towards the interest on her sleep debt while the fucking place airs out.

She somehow manages to wake up overheated and cold at the same time, which is impressive, at two in the morning, which is _just_ enough of a nap that it'll play merry hell with her sleep schedule and not enough that she'll be able to make it through the whole of Friday without dragging. Goes to fucking show. She gets up, closes windows. Smells much less closed-up in here now, and it'll smell even better when she manages to find the scented candles she knows she has _somewhere_ \-- no, she brought the last bunch she bought straight over to Daniel's, because he likes the way they --

She shakes her head at herself. Digs through her dresser until she turns up a sweatshirt -- not her favorite, that's over at -- 

Turns up a sweatshirt, full stop. Puts it on. Can't find any sweatpants she wants to wear, so she goes for her silk long johns instead; she'll swap out for a pair of flannel boxers if she gets too warm. She's got a few of those over here, and they're hers, even; Daniel wears boxer-briefs, and so the only clothing theft she ever committed was for pieces of outerwear. Half of which are General Jack's anyway, she knows. Or were, once upon a time. The clothing chain-of-custody is sometimes a little fuzzy; half of her tank tops are with Sam right now.

Middle of the night and she can't run the vaccuum, but she can dust, and does, with a vengeance. It's almost starting to look like someone lives here again by the time her stomach informs her that she skipped dinner. Nothing in the pantry (and the kitchen _still_ fucking sucks), so she sheds the long johns, changes into jeans, and takes herself, the first mindless book she can set her hands on, and President Nixon to the Waffle House.

It approaches food, at least. And even if halfway through breakfast she realizes that a stupid fucking romance novel is the last fucking thing in the world she wants to read right now, the short-order cook is friendly and willing to talk with her, and the sun's starting to come up as she wends her way back to her apartment, so she pulls President Nixon over and watches the sunrise for a while. Then she pitches the fucking romance novel as far as she can throw it over the edge of the overlook she's parked at, puts President Nixon back in gear, and drives back to her apartment to finish cleaning.

Friday afternoon, she's halfway to the market for the weekly shopping when she realizes that she doesn't know how many people she's shopping for, and she doesn't know where she's going to be cooking, and she refuses, _refuses_ to spend any length of time cooking in that fucking apartment's kitchen and besides nearly all of her kitchen gear is over at Daniel's anyway. It's the last straw. She turns around _again_ \-- at this rate, President Nixon's like to bomb Cambodia in protest -- and takes herself straight on back to the apartment to pack up a bag.

Long johns, jeans, double pair of thick handknit socks, thin gloves to go under thick mittens; her waterproof overalls and down jacket take some time to dig up out of the back of her closet, but she eventually finds them in the bin of stuff she hasn't opened since before the accident. She throws it all into a bag, throws the bag into the truckbed, calls into the SGC switchboard to let Walter and Graham know how to find her if they need her -- neither one of them will grass on her unless it's an emergency -- and then stops to think. If she'd been thinking about this ahead of time, she could have gotten a good deal, looked for the cheapest lodging and the best specials, but she hadn't been thinking about it, so she just calls Taddy to ask him where he goes when he makes a weekend of it. A few phone calls later, and she's got lodging, lift tickets, and gear rental all set up for her, and she heads on out to make ready to conquer a few demons.

It's about two and a half hours out to Monarch, which is the resort Taddy says is "not best, not closest, but best-and-closest", and she's starting to fade just as she'd predicted by the time she pulls in, so she checks in, stows her gear, goes to find the in-town ski shop Taddy recommended, and by the time she's got skis and boots fitted, she's ready to tuck on in. And she was right to get out of town for the weekend, even if the thought of facing down all that cold and ice and snow tomorrow leaves her fluttery, because she sleeps like a baby in the bed-and-breakfast bed. Change of scenery always does her good.

She used to be damn good at this. Brian had been the skier, in the 'Skinners -- downright mad for it -- and he'd dragged them all around Nevada and Utah to try out every resort that could be considered even _close_ to driving distance. She can hear his laughter in her ears as she buys goggles and heat-packs in the resort store, drops the heat-packs into her boots before she clips them up. _The cold's the point, Mama Bear,_ she imagines him saying. _Get us out of that desert for a while._

_Sorry, B-man,_ she thinks. _Guess I'm going to be one of the wimps this time._

But it's not as bad as she was expecting, truth be told. Cold, yeah, and snow everywhere, but she's been living with snow and cold for the past year and a half, and the mountain air is clear and crisp and open against her face. Takes her a while to get the hang of coordinating skis and poles again, of making sure she keeps her knees together and her skis parallel, and she takes a few test runs just to make sure the changes in her balance aren't going to do her in, but when she slides off the lift at the top of the mountain and looks all the way down, a little bit of her heart that she didn't even know was heavy lightens at the sight.

Sometimes, you just need to lose yourself in the wind against your face, in the leap and dance of throwing your body off a mountain and trusting gravity won't betray you in the end. ( _Again_ , the voice whispers, and she ignores it, _ignores_ , because she's here and it has to count.) Sometimes you have to occupy your body and let your mind settle things while you aren't looking. 

She wakes up in misery on Sunday morning -- she's in better shape now than she ever was when she was doing this before, true, but she's still banged up and short on sleep, and skiing uses muscles that running and jumping and shooting people just plain don't -- but a hot shower before checkout and three Advil with breakfast chase it down to a bearable roar. Driving home doesn't hurt too badly. And she'd left her civilian cell in the _glove compartment_ the whole weekend (Momma will forgive her, and besides, Momma knows how to get her through the official channels if there's true need) while her SGC-issue lived in her jeans pocket (on vibrate so she'd feel it if it buzzed, since she might have missed a ring in the rush of wind in her ears), and there's six voicemails sitting on her personal cell when she finally fishes it out -- Sam, Momma  & Daddy, Ash, cousin George, Uncle Al, and Cindy -- and her missed-call log says Daniel called three times and didn't leave a message once.

She doesn't call him back. She's over being mad at him -- mostly -- and now she just _aches_ , but she's not quite ready to tempt fate yet; there's a part of her that says she should head straight on over and talk this out with him now that she's calmed down some, get things straight and settled between them before they have to report back in bright and early tomorrow morning, but there's a bigger part of her that says she's just spent two days chasing a little peace of mind and if she has it shattered again, if the talk should go badly, she'll never be able to face him again in the morning without spilling their home life all over the Mountain gossip sheets. 

So she lets it go. And Monday morning she shows up first thing for what she thinks is going to be an easy week -- since they're not scheduled for anything more strenuous than paperwork, the not-put-offable-any-longer quarterly psych quals, training, and some work with Intelligence. But just as she's sitting down to her desk with her coffee and her email, Landry calls her in to tell her to get her ass moving halfway across the galaxy, because SG-8 has zero pilots and two captured ships and she and Teal'c are the only two in-Mountain right now who are checked out on the new _ka'shar_ mid-class that the Lucians are fielding. 

It's Wednesday night by the time they get back -- the two _ka'shar_ to the shipyards 'round back of the Alpha Site, her and Teal'c to the SGC -- and she pauses in the hallway outside of Daniel's office when she does. It's closed, and she doesn't know if it's closed because he's in there and doesn't want to be disturbed, or because he's not there. So she goes down to see Sam instead, who tells her that Daniel's on an overnight with SG-11 (Cammie beats down the instinctive primal surge of _my team, my people, you don't get to steal them when I'm gone_ ) and by the way, Cammie's an idiot.

"You told me to give him space and time," Cammie says.

Sam sighs. "I didn't mean _that_ much space and time," she says, exasperated. "Will you two please just sit down and talk about this before I have to lock you in a room together?"

Cammie folds her arms across her chest. "Don't see much to talk about," she says. "He apologized, I apologized, far's I'm concerned, we're aces. Your turn for Team Night on Saturday, right?"

Sam narrows her eyes. "Yeah, you're just fine. Where are you sleeping tonight?" Cammie's face must betray her answer, because Sam nods. "Uh-huh. 'Fine' my ass. Talk to him."

"Wouldn't be right to go over there with him gone," Cammie shoots straight back. "Has nothing to do with whether or not I'm holding a grudge."

"Uh-huh," Sam repeats. "Like this is different than any of the last twenty times you occupied his apartment while he was offworld without you."

It is, though, and Cammie doesn't expect Sam to be able to see it -- for all that Sam's spent plenty of time around Family, she doesn't have the manners down cold and instinctive yet -- so she says, "Wouldn't be right to go over there with him gone and things not settled between us yet. I'll talk to him when he gets home."

Sam gives her a dubious look. "Promise?"

Cammie sighs. "Hand to God," she says, wearily. "Tomorrow night. Promise."

Except the universe fucking _hates her_ , because Daniel's "overnight with SG-11" turns into "Friday afternoon and he's still not back". Nothing dangerous -- it's apparently only SG-1 that gets the pleasure of being tortured, beaten, and shot at -- but the dig site Daniel had gone to do a quick-and-dirty evaluation of turns out to be Ancient after all, and he's the only one on-base who's much above a second-grade reading level in Ancient, so he's stuck until Lord-knows-when. And it's the story of her goddamn life, and she should have known better than to try to conduct anything even resembling a romance while she was also in the middle of conducting the galactic equivalent of a land-war in Asia, but it's _still_ not right for her to go over to his place without him there, not unless she'd be going to move her stuff out. Using that key for anything else right now, with this unsettled between them, would be going behind his back. 

So when Landry (showing unexpected humanity for once, heaven bless) tells her to make an early afternoon of it in exchange for that unexpected three-day at the beginning of the week, she leaves a message on Daniel's office voicemail in case he gets back sometime this weekend, asking him to give her a call when he gets back -- his personal line would be too much of an imposition, but she knows he religiously checks his office voicemail first thing when he comes back from offworld -- and goes down to see if Teal'c wants company for the night. Teal'c is spending the weekend on Dakara, though, and he's already left. And she loves Sam with all her heart and if she has to deal with another of Sam's I-know-best lectures right now she'll _snap_ , so home alone it is.

She can't quite face the prospect of a night staring at the walls, though, and although she could call up a double dozen people from the SGC and see if they had room in their Friday plans for one more, she also doesn't want to be an imposition. Or, quite honestly, deal with anyone who might have spotted something's up and wants to ask if she's okay. Or why she's not spending her Friday with the rest of her team. So she swings by Sheila's for a bucket of fried chicken and some biscuits, neither of which come close to homemade, but they'll keep in the fridge and feed her for the weekend if it turns out she needs them to. 

Herself fed and leftovers stowed, she stares at the state of her kitchen gear (abysmal; all the good stuff is over at Daniel's) for a good ten minutes -- baking is a cure for myriad heartbreaks -- before something inside her snaps, and she says fuck it. It's been a long damn time since she treated herself to a night of pampering, and she's more than due. 

The _one_ place where the crackerbox doesn't fall down is the bathtub. Cammie digs through the boxes of stuff under the sink until she finds a few votive candles, sets them out on the edge of the tub, and runs the water hot as hell to warm the porcelain while she finds some of the bath goop Momma always likes to stuff in her stocking come Christmas. Her bruises are nearly faded, and the heat soaks out the last of the lingering stiffness, and by the time she's switched over to shower to wash off the steam-sweat, shave her legs, and wash her hair, she catches herself whistling.

Cocoa butter everywhere for the skin, a little bit of gel to spike up her hair, and a careful hand with the makeup, and nobody'd guess her for pushing forty. She is, she decides -- considering her naked body in the mirror -- in damn fine shape, scars and dings and flaws aside. And she's even starting to see those as character witnesses, after so long at the SGC, where everyone's got a few more scuff-marks than they started with. So she pushes through the stuff in her closet, until she finds the little black dress that every woman should have and that she hasn't touched in years.

Hers doesn't go much past mid-thigh or much higher than the nipples, and it's technically a size too small, but it's designed to be worn that way and it's got just enough stretch that it looks deliberate instead of trashy. Can't wear a stitch under it -- the lines would show -- and she'll have to take care with how she stands and walks, since she's out of practice with keeping decent in this number, but it doesn't much matter. The end result, when she finally gets done tugging and arranging everything to her heart's content, is killer. If she does say so herself.

There's a pair of shoes that go with it -- black leather sandals, three-inch fuck-me heels -- and she digs _those_ out too. She hasn't worn _them_ since the accident, either, because her feet aren't _grotesque_ \-- barely noticeable, really; the doctors had been able to save far more from the frostbite than anyone had thought -- but it's a matter of pride. But tonight's about pride, too, the pride it takes to bare the realities of her body and dare anyone to make an issue out of it, and she'll be damned if she hides any of her imperfections away. 

She's careful, the way she always is with shoes she hasn't worn since _before_ , to put them on and do a walkabout before stepping out to make sure they won't pinch anything that shouldn't be pinched or throw her still-not-perfect balance off too far. But she'd bought quality when she'd bought them, and the straps don't pinch her half-toe and the balance doesn't make her wobble. By the time she's done getting ready, she knows she's six foot three in heels and five miles of it is leg, and she feels like she could conquer an empire without breaking a nail. 

It feels good. It feels _fabulous_. It's been too damn long since she pulled out all the stops, and even longer since she got dressed, even to go out, without worrying about where she can fit her cell and her piece and whether she'll be able to run in the shoes she has on, if needs be and she gets called in. (She's no idiot -- the piece will go in the glove-box, there's an extra pair of boots behind President Nixon's bench-seat, and in a worst-case scenario, she can have the shoes off in under two seconds to run barefoot in and the spike-heels will make a decent weapon. But it's nice nonetheless.) 

She's just transfering her lipstick, her cell phone, and her ID to her clutch bag, debating jewelry (and deciding no; just her tags and the ankle bracelet Ash gave her for her twenty-first, the one she never takes off; she doesn't even wear a watch, never has, never needed to) when the doorbell rings.

And of course it's Daniel.

*

It's automatic for her to look him over with a weather eye, cataloguing all the little status-indicators: sunburn spreading across his cheekbones (he _always_ forgets the sunscreen, and she always remembers it -- sun-freckles will be her eternal bane -- and makes him put it on too), hair standing on end (means he was thinking -- he always thinks with hands in his hair, for some reason), the slightly vague, slightly distracted look he gets when he hasn't remembered to eat lately and his blood sugar's in the cellar -- but the look stops as soon as she gets down far enough to see what he's carrying.

It's a punch in the stomach. And whatever good mood she'd managed to win, whatever bits of self-confidence she'd managed to piece together, evaporates like a mirage, because what he's carrying is a thirty-gallon Rubbermaid bin heaped high with her clothes, and her blood is ice water in her veins, because he is here with her things and that means he is _kicking her out of his apartment_ and didn't even want to have her back in there long enough to do the packing herself.

But she will be damned if she lets him see how much it hurts. She draws herself up to her full length -- in these shoes, she's got the height advantage, and she'll damn well work it -- and calls on every inch of breeding her Momma beat into her fool head. "Daniel," she says, her tone even, keeping one hand on the door. 

He's gaping at her. Or at the dress. There's a bit of consolation in that. Not much. "Ah," he says, after a second. "I, uh. Brought your stuff over for you. So you wouldn't have to trouble yourself to come back over for it. Um. If now's a bad time, I can come back."

She blinks, and a suspicion dawns. Daniel's never, not once, shown any _clue_ that he's figured out the rules of when she stays and when she goes, when she comes over and when she leaves him space, and for half a second she sees a flash of this as he must: come home to find her nowhere to be seen and no sign she'd been there since their fight, and thinking it meant she didn't want to be there even with him gone. It eases some of that immediate gut-wrenching _fear_ \-- not all, but some -- and she steps backward and holds the door open. Maybe this is his way of trying to make an overture of communication. "You didn't have to do that," she says. "Come on in. I'll assume you want coffee." 

It's usually a safe assumption. She leaves the door open for him -- let him figure out where to put the bin; she didn't ask for it back and he can take it to hell for all she cares -- and heads into the kitchen to grind some beans and put on a pot. There's a minute where she thinks he isn't going to follow, that he'll just set her things down and turn on around and leave again, and then he's coming along behind her. "Ah. Yeah. No. I mean. Thanks." He pauses. "There's two more down in the Jeep. I can get them." 

Cammie waves a hand. "They'll keep," she says, and fetches down two of her old chipped coffee mugs. She steps out of her sandals and leaves them in the corner (and then tugs down the hem of the dress, swearing to herself, because this is _not_ the outfit she would have chosen to have this conversation in, but she has a feeling he'd rabbit if she took the time to go change). Pint of milk from the fridge, handful of sugar packets from the takeout-detritus drawer, two spoons from the silverware drawer, and by the time she's got that all settled, the coffee's beginning to drip and she can swap out the carafe for a mug to catch it so she doesn't have to wait for the full pot to brew before she can pour. "You get things settled on '946, or are they going to need you back tomorrow or next week?" 

It's always easier to ease into these things. She looks over her shoulder, to find him standing in the kitchen doorway and blinking at her like his brain's gone offline and won't cold-boot again. "I brought back the stuff I really need to take a look at," he says; "I might need to go back Monday, but probably not -- Look, Cammie, I really am sorry. I insulted you, and I'm sorry. I had no right to imply that your personal behavior is any of my business. It isn't."

She swaps one mug for another under the coffee, spares a hand to tug the hem of the dress down (with a hiss of irritation -- this is _not_ the outfit for kitchen work, not by a long shot), and puts the full mug down on the tiny table behind her, gesturing for him to sit. "It's all right," she says. "You apologized already. Consider it forgotten." 

Still, the apology melts some of her anger, and more the fact that he's finally figured out what part of it he should be apologizing _for_. "Sit," she continues. "Have you eaten yet? No, of course you haven't eaten yet." He wouldn't look so dazed if he had. Fully half of Daniel's reputation for absentmindedness is the fact that he gets just a touch spacy when his blood sugar drops, and she took both him and General Jack to task for the fact that nobody ever put two and two together and shoved a damn granola bar in his mouth from time to time. "I've got fried chicken. Not mine, it's from Sheila's, but it'll do in a pinch. _Sit_ , and I'll make you up a plate."

He doesn't move. "No, no, I interrupted you," he says. "You were going ... out."

She puts the plate she was reaching for down on the counter with a little too much force. "I'm not meeting with anyone in particular, so it doesn't matter when I show up or if I show up at all," she says. _You came here to start this conversation; I am not going to let you come up with an excuse to weasel out of it._ She yanks the dress down again as it threatens to ride back up _again_ and wouldn't it just _go to fucking show_ that she seems to have put on _just_ enough muscle in the past few years to round out her rear enough that the dress is now that critical half-inch too short. It's what puts the exasperation in her voice as she says, " _Sit_. You're hovering like you're going to bolt any second."

Daniel hesitates, then sits, stiff and awkward. "Really," he says, "it's not -- you don't have to go to any trouble. I'm fine. I just came over because I wanted to bring you your things. In case you -- were missing them."

It brings a sweet rush of confirmation, and she realizes: they've been talking at cross purposes. He thinks he's being polite, and he's trying to do the right thing, and she's been doing the same, and all of the past week and a half -- when one or both of them hasn't been halfway across the _galaxy_ \-- has been about both of them trying to do right by each other and failing miserably because they're both reading each other _entirely wrong_.

"Oh, for _heaven's sake_ , Daniel," she blurts out. "It's not that I didn't come over to get my stuff because I couldn't stand the sight of you _or_ your apartment, I was just waiting until you got _back_ and we could have a _talk_." She pauses, considers what she's just said, considers how he's likely to _interpret_ what she's just said, and amends, "I wasn't actually planning on getting my stuff at all. Unless you asked me to. I just needed some time to get over my mad. I told you. We're fine."

He's staring at the top of the table. "If we were fine," he mutters, and she somehow thinks she's not _exactly_ supposed to hear it, "you'd be sitting on my couch right now."

Clearer and clearer: he's telling her (in his own way) that he _misses_ her (in the normal course of things, she would indeed be sitting on his couch right now, in house-pants and a tank top, feet tucked up under her and a book to hand or her laptop on her lap or knitting in her hands, watching the game or playing poker online or just _existing_ , while he did his work that he brought home from '946, and the thought of it sounds so much like heaven that she doesn't let herself miss it). 

Her hand comes up -- to touch him, in the way she hasn't in too long, the way she touches her people -- but she makes herself turn it into a reach for the refrigerator door instead, because this isn't fully settled yet and she shouldn't touch him until it is. "The couch's owner made it clear that he and I had been having a few differences of opinion," she says, as lightly as she can. "Figured it'd be a good idea to let it sit for a while. I am sorry too, you know. My misunderstanding, and I shouldn't have lost my temper at you like that."

He does look up at that, and the look in his eyes is half confusion, half budding anger. "I fail to see how me saying that I'm not interested in a one-night stand is a _difference of opinion_ ," he snaps out, through gritted teeth. Then closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out, makes himself relax. "All right, okay, I implied you -- made it a habit, and the suggestion was both rude and uncalled-for. But -- _really_ , Cammie, I don't think that saying something like 'want to fuck' out of nowhere like that constitutes -- or doesn't constitute -- or hell, I don't know _what_ it constitutes. But what I do know is ... I'm not sure, actually."

"Daniel," she says, exasperated. "For the love of God, it's hardly out of nowhere. You've been as grumpy as a bear about me for the past year."

"That's because you've been acting like an idiot!" he snaps. Then shuts his mouth and puts his hands on the table, like he's going to lever himself out of the chair. "Look. I'm sorry. I should leave."

She's standing in between him and the door, though, and she's not going to let him go anywhere. She tilts her head, studies him. "Idiot?" she asks, curious. "How so?"

Daniel throws up his hands. "You. Teal'c -- I mean -- and the -- you and Sam -- do you really have to -- I don't _know_!" 

Cammie frowns. She's _pretty_ sure he doesn't know about her and Sam as her-and-Sam -- somehow she thinks the word 'Sapphic' exists to Daniel only in a theoretical and historical context, and anyway, it's never been anything more than a few nights here and there over fifteen years and only twice since she came to SG-1. Nothing more than loving friendship and care. And she and Teal'c have never so much as _kissed_. So she's not at all certain what he's trying to say. "I'm sure there was sense _somewhere_ in that," she says, slowly. "Sam's been my friend for years, and what about Teal'c? He's a sweetheart, and I love him to bits, and I fail to see how that makes me an idiot; any fool would be lucky to have a boy like that as a friend."

Daniel laughs. It sounds hollow. "He's old enough to be your _grandfather_ ," he says. "Your _great_ -grandfather."

She frowns further. "Don't you think I don't know that? He teases me about it often enough." And then she pauses, because she suddenly realizes what he's trying to say. "You think me -- and Teal'c -- and --" She closes her eyes, prays for patience. "Daniel, he's my _friend_."

"Well, _I'm_ your friend -- or I thought I was -- and you certainly seemed ready to --" He catches himself again. She can _see_ him counting ten. "I'm sorry. I just -- fail to see how sex is the answer."

There are so many responses she could make to that, starting with explaining that she's never precisely thought of Daniel as a _friend_ \-- or only a friend -- but she's not quite ready to cop to that yet. "I didn't say sex would be the answer," she says, carefully. "I asked a hypothetical question about whether or not it would take the edge offa -- offa you puffing your chest up like a frog every time you so much as saw me leaning on Teal'c's shoulder. Or going out for a couple of drinks and a game of pool after a tough week on the job. Got my answer, case closed, we can move on now."

"Move on," Daniel says, softly. To himself. Then he squares his shoulders and stands up. "Okay. I can put in my transfer request first thing Monday morning. I was headed to Atlantis when you showed up. I'm pretty sure they'll still take me. I assume you won't stand in my way."

She blinks. She'd been expecting it, sure enough -- not the first time they've run this song and dance -- but still, she wasn't prepared for the instant and immediate stab of _mine, my team, my people, mine_ that hits her this time, stronger than it's ever hit her before. "Who said anything about a transfer?" she demands. "I sure as hell didn't. And if you think I'm gonna let you outta my sight, you got another think coming."

"I --" He stares at her in utter incomprehension. "Cammie. I don't know what kind of conversation we're supposed to be having here. All I know is that -- is that I don't exactly have so many friends that I can 'move on' from the prospect of losing one of them this cavalierly. Especially not when it was my fault to begin with. And I certainly can't keep working on the same team as her."

"Oh, sweet puppies _fucking_ , Daniel, you --" She runs out of possible things to say. The whole damn mess of misunderstandings is getting ridiculous -- _move on_ indeed -- and she's more than a little annoyed he could think she meant it _that_ way, and she's annoyed at herself for letting it get this damn bad to begin with, because she should have _noticed_. She stabs a finger at him, sharp and abrupt. "Sit. Right this goddamn minute, you _sit_ your ass down, Daniel Nicholas Jackson, and you shut your goddamn mouth for a minute, and you _listen to me_."

He stares at her, mouth open. She folds her arms across her chest and stares straight back, and then -- damn it all to _the ninth goddamn circle of hell_ \-- yanks the fucking dress down with both hands, entertains a brief but satisfying thought of tipping back her head and screaming, and _glares_. He sits. Shell-shocked and confused as hell, but he sits.

"Now," she says, and she does her damn best to modulate both tone and anger into something they can work with, because this is her fault as much as it is his and _neither_ of them are making a very good showing of themselves; not fair to yell at him as though it were his fault entire. She closes her eyes and prays: _please, Lord, if You were ever gonna see fit to grant me patience someday before I die, now would be an excellent time._ "All right. We got one king hell of a misunderstanding here. You lemme tell you how I see it, and then you can tell me how you see it, and maybe somewhere in the middle of all of it we can find some _sanity_."

She waits for his nod -- brisk and tight, but putting it that way will hopefully make him start _thinking_ , will wake up the section of his brain that apparently only works on the _other_ side of the Gate, the one that's ready to observe and listen and process things before assuming. "Way I see it, you've spent the past six months -- hell, the past _year_ \-- snarling at any boy I so much as smile at, you get pissy and cranky anytime someone so much as drops his gaze below my neck, you growl every time I go out without you and turn down nearly every invitation to go out _with_ you, and don't think I haven't noticed you noticing my tits yourself, you know. I thought you were attracted to me --"

And oh _hell_ , because the words are falling out of her mouth again without her thinking about them, and this is precisely the thing that _started_ this problem in the first place, and she can't stop herself now any more than she could a week and a half ago. "-- an' I thought you were ready to _admit_ you were attracted to me an' just needed a little bit of nudge to get it started so you knew I knew, and I was _wrong_ about all of it and I'm _sorry_ an' I'll never mention it again, an' I'm tryin' to do the right thing here, I just don't know what the right thing _is_ , and don't you damn well say one more goddamn word about wanting a transfer, because I will move heaven and earth and all the planets beyond to keep your sorry ass pinned down here for the _rest of eternity_ if you so much as _breathe_ another word, because I am by God and heaven not letting you get away with walking out on me." _Shit_. "Us. I am not letting you walk out on _us_. I will shoot you first."

He's staring at her. She blinks. She hadn't intended to say that. Most of that. Any of that. She blinks again, and suddenly they're straight back where they started ten days gone, and she might have just lost any and all ground she'd gained, and the third time she blinks it's because there are tears in her eyes and she _will not goddamn cry in front of him_ , she's established this fact already, and she's this damn close.

"Hell," she says, and "excuse me," she remembers, just in time to turn around and stomp down the hall and into the bathroom to blow her nose and throw some cold water on her face before she really loses it. 

But he's hard on her heels, and through the door, she can hear him yelling, sounding about as exasperated as _she_ had, "Of _course_ I'm attracted to you! _Anyone_ would be attracted to you! If they weren't _dead_!" She pauses with her hand on the faucet, her heart in her throat, wondering if she really heard what she just thought she heard. He adds, after an equal pause, with scrupulous exactness, "At the time."

She has to laugh. Has to. If she doesn't laugh, she will _fucking lose her shit_. She yanks the door back open. "I cannot believe you just _said that_ ," she says, because he _knows_ how much it creeps her out to hear tell of his death-and-resurrection -- _twice_ \-- and he's usually better-mannered than to bring it up. Then she pauses. "Also, thank you." Another pause. "I think."

"Ah," he says, looking like he's wondering if he said what he just said about as much as she was wondering if she'd heard it. "You're welcome. I mean. Um. You might have noticed people around here tend to -- Anyway. Look. My point is -- I'm not good at this. Relationships. With people. Not just you. I mean --"

"I had noticed, yes," she says, dry like bones, because she's not quite ready to say yet that _she_ seems to be pretty bad with 'relationships with people' right now, or rather, relationships with _him_ , and she's got a sneaking suspicion that it's because she has never once in her entire goddamn life been in actual love and she finally has to admit that she's flying in a whiteout without instrumentation. She sighs and lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Look. Daniel. Please. Really. Just -- This whole thing was my mistake, and I'm _sorry_ , and -- I just want to try to make this right. Whatever you want me to do."

He throws up his hands. "What I want? I have no idea what I want! I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't and you're not making any _sense_ , and fine, you want to shoot me, _shoot_ me, and then you and Teal'c can hide the body, and -- you know what, here's a little advice; the next time you decide to proposition somebody you supposedly care so much about, I'd stay out of the Anglo-Saxon grammar, because it lends an air of frivolity that conveys a certain set of mixed signals!"

She blinks. Twice. And all of a sudden the last bit of it falls into place. "You've got your knickers in a knot because you thought I was --" 

She runs out of ways to finish that sentence, because it's finally, _finally_ come clear that he's just told her -- plain as day, even if he doesn't _know_ he's told her -- that he's not being _completely unreasonable about this_ because he doesn't want her or doesn't respect her or thinks she's unworthy. He'd thought she was proposing one night of no-harm-no-foul, nothing beyond that, and she'd missed it, but looking back at what she'd actually _said_ to kick all of this shitstorm off, she can see where he got that impression, except -- She closes her eyes, opens her mouth, and says, at about one notch under 'top of her lungs', "Did you somehow manage to _miss_ the part where I've been head over heels in goddamn love with you for the past two years, you stupid bastard?"

The look on his face is pure blank deer-in-headlights freeze. "What?" he says. And it's the 'what' that really means he had _no earthly clue_ , and she has fucked this up _so goddamn badly_ , because she was trying to keep from scaring him off by showing her cards too soon, sure and certain, but apparently she managed to do her job a little too well, because he's looking at her like a man who can't even believe in the possibility. "You -- With --"

"Oh, for God's sake," Cammie says, and shuts him up by knocking him across the tiny hallway so he's pressed up against the wall by her full body weight.

Then she kisses him.

One year, ten months, two weeks, and six days she's been wanting to do this, from the minute he smiled down at her while they were breaking out of jail and she plunged headfirst and entire. Through all the days and weeks of trying to figure out how the hell to approach him and talk with him and tend to him and be there for him, through all the weeks and months of cookie-baking and poker lessons and games of _go_ and marathon curl-up-and-read sessions, through all the jailbreaks and beatings and shootouts and acts of interstellar piracy, the potential of this kiss has been there. Through conversations, and arguments, and all the sweet silent moments in between. 

There's a minute where she's worried she's called it wrong, when he's stiff and shocked and startled underneath her. Then he makes a little noise in the back of his throat, and it sounds like surrender, and he softens and kisses her back. And oh, God, the _hunger_ there, desperate and boundless. Like something he's been penning up for longer than he'd care to think about, just like she has. And his mouth, his _mouth_ , strong and soft all at once, and she's lightheaded and dizzy just _thinking_ about what that mouth is promising her. She laces her fingers through his, pins those up against the wall _too_ , and concentrates on putting just as much promise into her end of things. 

Then she pulls back -- too soon, but anytime before the heat-death of the universe would be 'too soon', and there are things they have to, _have to_ , get settled before they cash those checks they just wrote each other. She can't resist one last nip at his lower lip -- might be the last taste she gets, or at least the last taste for a bit, and she wants to store it up. Then she says, "So. That's my horrible secret. An' now we got a few things to talk about, I'm thinking."

"Okay," Daniel says: stunned, breathless. This close, she can see his pupils are blown clear and wide, lust and surprise, and she gets the sense he'd agree to anything in the world she proposed right now, because she's always known that men have enough blood to run one brain at a time, and this close, she can also testify that the little head's winning. So she squeezes his fingers and takes a step back, just to give him some breathing room. He blinks again. "Do you ... Do you mind if we just go back and _start all of this over_?"

She gives him as much of a little smile as she can -- because if she's honest with herself, she'd like nothing more out of life right now than the chance to _blow him in this hallway_ and this being-a-grownup thing kind of sucks _rocks_. "Depends on where you wanna rewind to. We could skip the parts where I make an idiot of myself, maybe." 

Her hands are not shaking. _Not_. At all. She yanks the _goddamn fucking dress_ down again, turns around, and heads back to the kitchen, where she sits down at the table and picks up the mug of coffee she hasn't yet touched. 

Daniel follows her into the kitchen, his feet soft against the floor, and he steps up behind her, and he puts his hands on her shoulders. His hands are warm and strong and beautiful, and she turns her face to rest her cheek against one of them, and she closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of him, so close. "No," he says. "My turn. You said I'd get to tell you my side of it." 

His voice is just as warm as his hands, threaded through with rueful laughter -- at her, at himself -- and he sounds like he's gotten a whole dose of courage and confidence from _somewhere_. "You suggested that we -- let me try to quote here -- 'fuck some of this sexual tension out of our systems'. And no. I don't want to do that. I want to make love with you." His thumb caresses the line of her neck, as though to underscore his words, and she suppresses a shiver. "And I think I have for a while. And -- you know, I have no idea what it'll do to the team? And I don't care. Isn't that crazy?" He laughs again. It has the sound of self-discovery, and wonder, and awe. "That's my side of it."

She sets her coffee mug down on the table with a snap. She wants to melt, wants to revel in these astonishing declarations, wants to wrap herself up in his words and keep them close forever. It _really fucking sucks_ being a grownup. "I could promise you I could still work with you, no matter how it turns out," she says, and oh, her voice stays completely even, and she will be proud of that until her end of days. "Could you promise me the same thing?" 

"No," he says, immediate and honest, hard on the heels of her words, and her heart sinks. "Not if it didn't work out. Not if we couldn't stand the sight of each other. I -- if things went bad, I'd transfer. But. If they weren't bad. If --"

A long silence, and she's trying not to hold her breath, and his thumb traces its way up her neck, along each of the nubs of her spine, and she _does_ shiver, then. When he speaks again, his voice is low and fast, and it's lost any hint of the humor it had a moment ago. "I don't see how it would really be a lot different than it is now. Because I think I've been managing to cope with watching you get shot at, knowing it would kill me to see you dead, for a very long time now."

She turns around in her chair, and she fastens her arms around his waist, presses her cheek against his stomach, and breathes out. There are little tremors running all through her skin. The pre-flight shivers. "You were the one who was just making the dead jokes," she says for the record, indistinct against his skin. "And. You know. It goes both ways. Which is why I get so goddamn mad at you every time you mouth off to the bad guys so they'll hit you instead of me." She sighs, soft and shifting. "And every time we walk through that Gate, there's a chance I'll have to do it. Order you to go do something that'll get yourself killed, or pick myself back up and keep on going after you do, and -- I'll do it, Daniel. I have to be the CO first. I have to put SG-1 first. _Earth_ first. If -- if that's going to be a problem, you have to tell me now."

She suppresses the memory of watching him go down under fire and having to hold the line -- having to _negotiate_ with those fucking bastards who'd just shot Daniel, having to smile pretty and play nice and pretend half her heart hadn't been dragged back through that Gate bleeding, because she never wants to think about it again. And that had been the moment she knew that Teal'c and Sam were both all right with this, that they both trusted her to do the right thing; Sam had followed her orders, and she knows damn well Teal'c knows what's going on even if Sam hasn't told him, and she hadn't had a lick of trouble reading the respect in Teal'c's eyes as he'd escorted her home. Because she'll do it again, if and when she has to. She just knows there's no chance of coming out sane on the other side.

"No," he says, again, just as fast. His arms circle her as well as he can in the position they're in, and if his previous 'no' had made the bottom drop out of her stomach, this one lifts it right back up. "No. You -- you have to. You have to be. I want you to be. We just have to ... leave it there. Keep it separate. We can do that." It's a promise, and a prayer, and a vow. His hand comes up to cup the back of her head, lightly. "We can do that."

So she looks up at him. "Then take me to bed, Daniel," she says, soft and fast. He looks down at her, and the corner of his mouth quirks up, like he can't believe his fortune. The same smile he'd given her that started them on this merry ride, and it makes her heart sing just as much as it did back then, and sometime soon, maybe she'll tell him about the moment she decided he was the one.

Then she realizes something. "Of course," she adds, "this place sucks. This _bed_ sucks. Yours is much nicer. And all the food is over there." She cocks her head, considering. "On the other hand, all my _stuff_ is in the backseat of your Jeep."

He looks poleaxed for a minute. Then he _laughs_. "Actually, there's a bin of it in your living room. And, you know, I think we can get that back in my Jeep, and all of it back into my place, pretty quickly. And my bed probably _is_ nicer than yours. So. I'll take that bin back down, and you can tell whoever it was you were meeting that you're moving to Tibet to become a Buddhist nun."

She loves it, _loves him_ , when that sense of humor rears its head. So she laughs too, and it feels good, feels nicer than just about anything tonight since that kiss. She scoots the chair out of the way and stands up, and she curls her hand around his hip and pulls him close. "I actually _was_ just going out to dance and drink and tease a whole bunch of college boys," she says. Then she kisses him again, a lick and a promise, and steps back to go and pack a bag. 

His eyes follow her as she sashays out of the kitchen, and she doesn't have any problem whatsoever reading the love and lust and reverence there. All right, mostly the lust. Which warms her heart, and a lot of things down on lower. 

So she turns around and grins at him. And this, _this_ is happiness, right here: him, her, a whole realm-of-possibility of futures ahead. "But if you ask me nicely," she adds, "I'll keep the dress on and let you peel me out of it yourself."


End file.
